Free Unbearable by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page A

inside the shadow there was movement.
    “Nyanther,” I breathed, nodding toward the crack.
    “I see it,” Nyanther said softly.
    From the far end of the cave, where the walkway dove into another transition, came a voice, still far away. “I tell you, I heard something and it didn’t sound good.”
    The footsteps were coming closer.
    Nick stumbled out of the narrow cleft, walking like an automaton, his movements jerky. There were two swords in his hands. Both his and the katana were covered in inky black ichor. His shirt was covered in blood. Human blood.
    I stopped thinking. I deliberately made myself not think, except for immediate concerns. I shoved Riley into Nyanther’s arms and ran across the rock and shale floor of the cavern toward Nick. “Miguel!” I called softly and he followed me.
    The footsteps of the bicycle group were coming closer.
    I pulled the swords out of Nick’s hands and shoved them at Miguel, then yanked out my own. “Get Nyanther’s, too,” I said urgently. “Take them somewhere and stash them. Not in the cars. Somewhere unconnected. We can’t be found with them on us.”
    Miguel’s eyes were large. He nodded as he gripped the swords.
    “Then leave,” I told him harshly. “You can’t be processed and this is going to be messy. Go!”
    He slipped and skidded back down to the walkway, yanked Nyanther’s sword right out of his hand and started to run, the swords clinking unmusically together, their normally sweet notes ruined by the ichor. He disappeared around a twist in the walkway.
    “Oh my god…that’s blood! ” came the exclamation.
    Then someone started to scream, the sound echoing and booming in that cold place.

January 6, 1984
    There isn’t much left to tell in this tale. You already know the hard facts. Natalia Grey Connors died on January 5, 1984, from what authorities presume was a hibernating bear that she must have disturbed when she ventured off the safe pathway of the public caves. What no one mentioned was that she was found lying upon a bed of pebbles and dirt, in a cavern with a floor worn smooth by a river, some eon in the past. The only pebbles anywhere in that cavern were the ones she laid upon.
    I managed to rouse Nick enough so that when the police arrived, the ambulance crew just behind them, he could respond almost normally. I didn’t want some over-anxious medical assistant to try treating him for shock and find that he didn’t have a heart beat and his body temperature dropped off the bottom of the chart.
    Nyanther gave Riley back to me after that and she sat in my arms the entire time we were questioned. After several hours we were allowed to leave, but had to hold ourselves available for more questions.
    I don’t think Nick noticed that we followed the stretcher with Tally’s body out into the night, which seemed much warmer than the interior of the cave by then. He was in no state to drive, so I drove back to Ocala, while Nyanther watched out for the hotel the police had directed us to, with the implication that they wanted to be able to find us there when they came looking for us again.
    Nyanther asked for his own room, but came with us into ours. I put Riley to bed, surrounded by a pillow dam so she would not roll off the big bed. Then I pushed Nick into the one armchair the room provided.
    Nyanther sank down onto the end of Riley’s bed.
    For the first time, I let myself think properly. That was when the shakes set in. The overwhelming fact of her death was shouting at me. Now I could afford to think, I couldn’t think of anything else but the one horrible fact.
    None of us moved or spoke, after that. Not until Riley woke early the next morning, hungry and demanding, which stirred us back into the human concerns of daily life.
    * * * * *
    The police cleared us of any wrong-doing. The condition of Tally’s body and the medical examiner’s conclusions did that on their own. No human would be capable of rendering a body in that way, not with